Purfleet, by Allister Webb, April 4, 2017

If you’re like me and have something of a sweet tooth, then the Lynn News office can be a difficult place to work.

That’s because there aren’t many days that go by here when there aren’t some tasty goodies just waiting to be devoured.

Just last week, for example, there were all sorts of cakes and biscuits around the place and I’m sure there were some doughnuts around here last time I looked.

Now, I’m well aware there will be far more sensible people than this writter holding their hands in their hands with horror at this picture of gluttony.

But, while I’ve never been that conscious of watching my weight, I’ve not been able to avoid noticing that a few too many pounds have been piled round my middle of late.

So it was rather apt that the start of my weekend was delayed by the bumper-to-bumper traffic I encountered on the way out of Lynn on Friday night.

For it was only a few days earlier that I had heard the boss of Stagecoach’s operations in West Norfolk telling a borough council committee that congestion in Lynn was getting worse.

It’s not a new problem, and whatever issues there may be with the work of the area’s main bus operator, a message like that ought to be listened to.

So, whatshould we do about it? Is the solution as simple as the tweet we had in response to our story in Friday’s paper which suggested banning cars from the town centre altogether? It’s certainly a radical option and one that would require some significant infrastructure that isn’t in place at the moment for it to work effectively.

But even though I like to think I’ve mellowed a bit behind the wheel, being stuck in stationary or slow-moving traffic remains one of my top motoring irritants. During my days as a junior reporter, I had to attend several courses in Leeds and found myself in the jams heading into the city centre and thinking sitting in traffic endlessly every morning just wasn’t for me.

So here’s my contribution to reducing Lynn’s congestion problem. It’s probably not something I can do every day, but every little helps. But the best way I can think of to avoid the jams is to make the relatively short walk from my house to the Lynn ferry.

For those of us who live to the west of Lynn, there can’t be many better, or less stressful, ways to get to work than across the waters of the River Great Ouse.

Given it’s not the longest walk there for me, some might say I don’t have much of an excuse.

But if it means I avoid the traffic and can do something about the unwelcome growth in the stomach area, I’d say it’s something of a win-win. Now all I’ve got to do is keep away from the cakes in the office.